Urban Gardening - Late May

It’s late May, and the weather is warm and toasty – just how the plants like it. The garden has filled in a bit; the left side growing faster than the right side due to the fact that the sun hits the left side for a longer period. Ideally a vegetable garden would get more sun that this little urban garden does, but...

The sweet peas are producing. They weren’t fat enough to justify picking, shelling, and eating on picture day, but I couldn’t resist and plucked a few off the vine, popped the shells open, and ate the sweet green peas nestled inside. Just like sugar!

Can you say salad? We have crap-loads of lettuce. The head lettuce is headin’, and the leaf lettuce is leafin’. The arugula and mizuna are starting to bolt (flower), which signals the end of their lifecycle. If you’re smart and on top of things, you would have seeded more greens that would be on their way as the first crop is on its way out. It’s called succession planting. We did this, not with lettuce, but by tucking small peppers and leeks in amongst the lettuce. When the lettuce gets pulled, there will be more room for the other veggies. Things are tight here. We’re practicing square half-foot gardening, instead of the much popular square-foot gardening method.

Above is a picture of waxy kohlrabi leaves with purple stems up top, fuzzy eggplant leaves with purple stems at the bottom, and frilly carrot leaves beneath the two. We only have a few kohlrabi plants, one eggplant, and about a foot long row of carrots. Tiny garden!

Game time! Spot the difference between the above two pictures of the same tomato. Yep, there's something missing in the middle of the second photo. I pinched off a sucker. Suckers grow in the leaf axils, and should be pinched off when they are young to avoid having one helluva bushy, monstrous tomato plant with multiple stems. You don't have to do this, but I like to control the growth of my tomato plants a bit. (I also like to carry a whip.) Don't pinch the suckers if they are large and have gotten away from you, as this creates a large wound. Just tell yourself you'll be a better person next year.

A nifty thing you can do with these suckers, that is, if you're a good tomato mommy, is stick a sucker you cut from the leaf axil in some moist dirt, and start a new plant. This is very easy, as tomatoes have auxiliary roots on their stems that are just waiting for an excuse (soil) to pop out.

That's all. Just watering and waiting for the fruits of our labor – tomatoes specifically.

Urban Gardening - Early March
Urban Gardening - Early April
Urban Gardening - Mid-April
Urban Gardening - Early May